Let’s get one thing straight. I’ve been following the Collegians since their brilliant debut single, “Vaccine”, which then was followed up “Black Mass”. This Melbourne based Australian band, with a British-born singer, sound exactly like the confident, ambitious superstars they are very likely soon to be. On their latest single release, “Killer” the band tempers their unabashed grandiosity and progressive obsessions with a smart electro-rock groove. Glenn Patrick (Vocal, Guitar), Gerry Leigh (Guitar, Vocals), James Leigh (Keyboard, Bass) and Vince Leigh (Drums) forms a band that you’ll find difficult to categorize – if not with the classification of ‘elite’.
So what does it mean? It means the Collegians is one of only a handful of distinctive band who are creating some of the freshest and most adventurous rock music out there today. And I would put the emphasis more on ‘music’ than I would simply on ‘rock’.
Right from the first note of any one of their songs, the Collegians hits you straight in the heart and never lets you go. Once you have picked up your dropped jaw after hearing “Killer” for the first time, you will only need a second to realize that you have found the pot of gold on the other side of the musical rainbow.
You realize that you have found something so special that you wonder if you are dreaming because you can’t believe that you are only now discovering the Collegians. You’ll find it so hard to believe that a band so amazing could have eluded you since 2015 – the same year in which the band sealed a deal with music label Cultivator Records. Exactly one year after official forming the Collegians.
The Collegians has recorded the finest single of their career to date, perhaps the most wonderfully rewarding song they have penned thus far, a track that is as ambitious as it is combustive, and as bombastic as it is gracefully seductive. The band skillfully twist noir drama from an essentially melodic composition, which truly engages the listener.
Come the record’s sustained chorus climax, and all the listener can do is allow themselves to be swept away in the rush. And what began as a tense and mysterious piano motif, suddenly morphs into an ever-building roar – a hard-hitting wonder to behold. The track sounds very modern and electronic, but deceptively finds its way through some fundamental rock and roll structures.
This is a very imposing kind of music, full of arranging flourish and vocal dynamics which is very hard to ignore. To simply define the Collegians as a rock band is to neither do them justice nor acknowledge the scale of the musical achievement here, a vision that encompasses electro, alternative and classic influences. “Killer” is hugely energetic, inventive and entertaining, and a colossal candidate for one of the singles of the year.
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